Seeds of Change
by The Famous Fire Lady M
Summary: After the apocalypse, Nick and Ellis were forcibly separated. Now CEDA is up to something and the only people to solve this mystery are the two of them. It doesn't help that CEDA has issued a mandatory repopulation program. Nellis, Frochelle. M for language, violence and really really mild sexual content. Not mpreg.


**AN: Okay, so I've been working on the plot of this for so long, like, long before the AU fic I started. This one is more post-game L4d/L4d2 crossover, and it's kind of, what I noticed, an original idea comprised of many small ideas put in my head from other fanfics. If you notice a small plot point similar to your fic, please, don't freak out, I assure you I did not steal it, the plot just found its way to that specific idea. So yeah, um, there will be ocs. Like a crapload of them, but don't worry, that's just part of the plot. None of them will get in the way of your precious shipping, so don't even think about bitching about the fic having "Mary sue" ocs. I'm trying very hard to make all the people as flesh-and-blood as possible. Which means that everybody may be more than just the caricatures featured in the game. Yes, this is Nellis. This is Frochelle. It may take a long time to get there but, trust me, it will. Also Warning! If you get squeamish, this story may not be for you. It may take a while to get to the more violent parts, maybe like a chapter or two but it **_**will**_** get violent, and it **_**will **_**have several character deaths. Please, bear with me, I know nothing of military stations and all that, so I'm gonna BS most of it, though it shouldn't matter much with the story since it doesn't involve the military very much. I know quite a bit about IVF though, so that, at least, I hope, will be accurate. Also let me remind you that this is post-game, so there will be flashbacks and references to the games and/or interpretations of events that happened in said games.**

* * *

"N-Nick, watch out for that—!" Ellis sat up in a cold sweat, waking in his spacious little cabin, on one of the biggest cruise ships to ever have been built, courtesy of Carnival cruise line (which had long since been destroyed completely) and CEDA. Looking around the darkened room, he stood. His legs wobbly on the floor, he padded, barefoot, to the nearest porthole window. Glancing out at the stars so far away, Ellis felt calmed. The soft sound of the waves below and the gentle, near-imperceptible rocking of the ship was slowly relaxing him to the point where he felt he could easily have fallen back asleep if he wanted to. But he didn't want to; even if the nightmare about his former teammates was already starting to dissipate from his mind. Ellis felt he needed some fresh air, instead, so he turned and went to step out of his little cabin and sighed, grabbing his army-issued cotton jacket and slinging it over his shoulders.

Making his way to the top deck of the Liberator, Ellis felt at ease on the ship. No infected to be seen for miles, since they couldn't swim or cross oceans. The ship was as safe as any, ever since the Navy (or at least what remained of it) commandeered it and many others after the so-called apocalypse. The ocean was the safest place for the survivors now, hence the vast armada of cruise ships and military vessels that roamed the sea, and the many people who populated them.

Ellis looked out at the top deck and the sky when he reached the railing, breathing in the salty air as the gentle breeze whipped his hair. There was a soft tap at his shoulder and he turned, only to find himself face to face with Rochelle.

"Hey," She murmured, leaning her back against the raining beside him. Ellis leaned forward against it as well, eyes surveying the horizon.

"Hey," He croaked back, his voice quiet.

Rochelle scooted a little closer, a mischievous look on her face, her tone teasing. "You know you're not supposed to be out here. Curfew is in effect." She nudged him. "Plus did you hear we're going to be docking with an airplane carrier, like the military kind, for a refueling and re-supplying?"

The young man shrugged. "Why am I supposed to be excited about that?"

"Oh, c'mon," Rochelle looked up at him, excited. "Like you _don't_ want to meet a cute Navy guy? I know you, El. Guys in white are your type."

The redhead flushed. "Shut up." He was still a little upset over the loss of the abrasive conman that he'd fallen hopelessly for with no chance of it ever being reciprocated. The woman standing in front of him was the only one he ever really told.

"So, you'll think about it?" Rochelle asked, raising her eyebrows.

Ellis chuckled softly. "Fine, I'll go scope out the sailors with you."

The woman hugged him tightly. "This'll be so fun. I wonder if any of 'em will be cute?"

The Georgian sighed. "I just want to know when we get to go back home. I miss solid land, y'know?"

Rochelle turned toward him, leaning her elbow on the rail. "Yeah, I understand." She looked down at the ocean, and the slowly rising sun. "I miss my family. Everybody.." The woman bit her lip, tapping her nails against the metal rail. "It's so different now."

Ellis glanced up at her, clearing his throat as quietly as he could. "Yeah." He pulled his hood up against the morning's chill, and zipped up his jacket. "I wonder if Nick's okay." He added, as a soft afterthought. "I mean, is he alive? The Army musta did some tests on him or something. He woulda tried to contact us if the Army let him, right?"

"Ellis, honey, really, Nick could be…" She swallowed the lump in her throat at the idea of such loss, "long gone.. The Army could've done away with him." Like Coach. Coach had been a carrier, and it was long before CEDA really knew exactly what carriers were, or how the Green Flu was even spread. He was blown away by a firing squad with several other carriers. He had been in the same group as Nick, separated. Rochelle had seen it, but Ellis only heard from her the tales of how she would never recover from that sight. The young man only hoped that his conman didn't suffer the same fate.

"El, it's okay, though. If you're so worried, ask someone on the ship." Rochelle replied, her tone soothing. "Try looking him up in the rosters."

"The stubborn redhead tightened his grip on the rail. "I might just do that."

"Good on you, honey." Rochelle answered, a little distracted, as the sun rose on a new day and the horn blew as curfew was announced over and the aircraft carrier was spotted in the distance.

* * *

Nick was tough, but not tough enough to take on an entire platoon of uninfected soldiers. That was the biggest problem he had ever faced in his life, other than his psycho ex-wife and all that entailed. _Especially_ when they took his weapons, calling it "a gift to our servicemen', and when they forced him into a tiny cell with some other unwashed felon, and finally when they burned his suit right in front of him, like they were rubbing it in. _They_ were the Army, _they_ were CEDA, and _they_ were here to help. If by _help_, they meant subjugation, assault, and a few other three dollar words Nick could futilely spit at them through the bars of his cell.

So yes, Nick was tough but not tough enough to fight the men that mowed down Coach right In front of him. The bastards were taking blood tests of all the people at the CEDA center, and lined up all the carriers that were processed and just… blasted them all away. He was lucky that not only was he in line to be processed and not against the wall, facing his death, but he came out immune. _Thank god_. He couldn't bear to see the men and women, just gunned down like animals. it made him sick. The only part that lightened the burden of seeing that atrocity was that more men that women were carriers. It was almost as if the few women who were carriers had married other carriers and were somehow drawn to them. Hell, he didn't know, he wasn't a scientist.

As fate would have it though, his cellmate turned out to be none other than that tattooed biker fuck; the one Rochelle liked so much. They did _not _hit it off well_, _that was for certain. Too many times to could, the two of them were suspended from any thing remotely resembling what could have been shore leave or visiting other boats, for getting into fights. Nick and his dickish cellmate only _really_ got along when the vest-wearing guy smuggled an old girly magazine or two into the room. He had to admit, the fucker had class when it came to his pin-ups and centerfold choices. Also the brunette had more than an inkling that more than half the pictures of the ladies his cellmate had accumulated looked at least a little like Rochelle. About all of them were black. Nick was fairly certain the biker had a tiny schoolboy crush on his former teammate, but who was he to judge, even if he never really wanted to imagine the woman naked. The conman had a certain someone on his mind as well, ever since the group split up. That stupid hick took him by storm an left him ravaged and raw-feeling, after every time he dreamt of him. Francis fancy pin-ups did nothing for him especially since not even one of them remotely looked like Ellis. _Well_, there was one. Some red-headed broad with milky white skin whose name he couldn't be bothered to know and didn't care to know anyway, the woman was probably long dead anyway. But she had the same clear blue eyes Ellis did, that same vibrant energy. Hell, even the same smile. It was like the kid's lady twin, his spitting image. Honestly, it was a little creepy, but Nick didn't dwell on that. Instead, he put all of his energy not expended in working for CEDA or the Army towards finding Ellis. He just combed through every record of the passengers and survivors on the ship, his ship, the USS JFK. The damn Army-CEDA-God knows what bastards put him to work once they got a sample of just about all of his fluids. And by all, he meant _all of them_.

Nick was searching for anything that could give him an answer. He knew Coach was gone, but Ro and Ellis were still around, as far as he knew. He just had to find them.

Francis was the one who had tipped him off. The Liberator was their ship's name, some god-awful jingoist CEDA glurge, but it was a fitting sort of name. It liberated Nick's spirit, sending it soaring as soon as he checked the roster. What clinched it was that the USS JFK would be refueling the Liberator. They'd be coming across it soon enough and as soon as he touched down on that deck, he would be running through the ship, trying to find him, rules and suspensions be damned. It would be more than worth it.

And after that, he would request a transfer and say sayo-fucking-nara to the horrid JFK and maybe get back on solid land eventually. Or at least he hoped he would. Knowing the pricks running the show, and the CEDA fuckers higher up, he might end up transferred to god-knows-where. Especially since that slimy Italian bastard Moretti hated "troublemakers" like him. And Nick knew very well what happened to people he hated. He'd seen it. Moretti was pure evil, the brunette was sure of it, and almost all of the people he ordered to kill, coach included, were all old. It smacked highly of Eugenics to him, but what did he know?

Those men and women were branded "troublemakers" because they tried to defend themselves and they were destroyed utterly. Yeah, Nick had done plenty of horrible stuff, things normal people would balk at, all in the name of making a quick buck, but really, that took the cake. What he did was bad, but killing harmless people in the name of the "greater good"? No. Even a cold, seasoned conman like Nick couldn't handle it.

* * *

Agent Greg Moretti was a killer, yes, and he knew just how well that worked for him. He knew the rest of the world, the _civilized_ world, would not understand what a man of his stature had to go through, had to _sacrifice_ to climb the ranks so easily, what he had given up to reach the higher tiers, up with the CEDA powers-that-be. Murder was one such thing he could easily pull off if it meant he would rise to the top. He new he would never be caught, he was too powerful, had too many ties. If someone said the wrong word, he could snuff them out without a second thought, shut them up before they got too loud, called too much attention and ruined everything. And now, _now_ he was up for the big promotion, the one he had been vying for for years. Agent Moretti would not let anyone stand in his way, even if it meant he had to get them out himself the hard way. He'd stop at nothing to reach the top. And nobody could stop him.

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**AN: My friend says "francis needs better porn". So yeah. XDD um, read and review! Thanks for reading! I am planning on giving my other fic, the AU a hiatus, so yeah. :3 I love you all. **

**TFFLM**


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